Ache
by Sparkly Faerie
Summary: Oneshot. "Life passes me by. In the years since the revolution, I've sat apart and watch my old life fade into memory in the shadows of the world being rebuilt around me. I want a family again." Katniss realises she wants to have children.


**Sigh. It has begun. Now I'm writing _The__Hunger__Games_ fanfiction too. X3**

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><p><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I do not own The Hunger Games or anything associated with it. All rights to The Hunger Games and affiliated products belong to Suzanne Collins and the other proper entities.

**Summary:** "Life passes me by. In the years since the revolution, I've sat apart and watch my old life fade into memory in the shadows of the world being rebuilt around me. I want a family again." Katniss realises she wants to have children.

**Rating:** K+

**Pairing:** Peeta/Katniss

**Warnings:** A very mild sexual reference toward the end, but it's only one line.

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><p><strong>Ache<strong>

Life passes me by.

In the years since the revolution, I've sat apart and watch my old life fade into memory in the shadows of the world being rebuilt around me. Of course, Peeta and I have rebuilt our relationship, but it's still far from perfect.

Sometimes, early in the morning, I'll wake up and wonder if he's _really_ happy with me. I know he deserves so much more—he should be out there, with the rest of the world, celebrating fifteen years of freedom and equality. He should have a happy wife, and little children running around the bakery, maybe a dog or two. But, instead, he sits with me on our front steps and holds my hand while I stare into space.

For years I've felt a massive hole in my heart, where all those that I'd lost used to live. My father, my sister. My mother, to some extent. Finnick, and Boggs, and Rue, who I'd known for only a little while, but who had wormed their way into my heart nonetheless. Gale, who used to be my best friend in the whole world, before we grew apart and drifted away from each other after the revolution.

Peeta's still here, though. And Haymitch, even though he's getting on in years. We celebrated his fifty-sixth birthday last week. A smile comes to my lips when I think about it, even six days later. How he'd ranted that he wanted us to leave him alone and how Peeta had rolled his eyes and had told him that we weren't about to let him rot in his own filth if we could help it. It was, he'd said, almost like looking after an overlarge child.

A million times, early on in our marriage, we'd fought about having children. He hadn't wanted _many_, he'd said. Only one or two. But I'd put my foot down. I didn't want children. The world was too new, too fragile. One little thing could bring it crashing down around us.

But that offhand comment to Haymitch has been playing on my mind all week. I can't help it—I just keep thinking about it. I don't know why. Peeta hasn't even asked me about having children for almost ten years.

I'm vaguely aware of his tracing lines over the palm of my hand as we sit out here in the evening, watching the sunset. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of the reaping, meaning that there will be a celebration of sorts in the square. There's always food, dancing, and a minute's silence for the children lost in the Hunger Games. And Peeta usually gives a speech. It makes my head spin to think that I stood there, taking my sister's place on the stage in the square sixteen years ago, with Peeta next to me. That we both lived through two Games and a revolution and are still here to talk about it. We've both lost so much.

I watch a younger woman—she would have still been young when the revolution ended—shepherd a pair of small children up the road. I recognise her as Ribbon, the town tailor's wife. She and her parents migrated here from District One when the travel lines were opened.

As I watch her bend down to soothe the crying three year old that had fallen and scaped her knee, I'm not prepared for the wave of longing that staggers me. I blink, trying to rationalise the dull ache in my chest at the sight of this woman and her little girl.

Where did this come from? I've seen them thousands of times. They've come into the bakery dozens of times in the last few months alone. I'm even on good enough terms with Ribbon to stop and chat in the middle of making mince pies at lunchtime. I've seen her son and daughter's smiling faces a hundred times, and all they'd been able to elicit from me before were a few chuckles and a cookie each on the sly.

I watch them until they disappear out of sight—the little one balanced on her mother's hip as the older boy trots along at her side.

It occurs to me suddenly that I want that.

It surprises me. I'd never wanted children when I was one myself. Hadn't I told Gale as much, the morning my sister was reaped and I stepped up to take her place? I'd never even considered that my mind might change, not even for an instant. I'd never told Peeta "maybe some day", or "give it a few years and we'll see". It had always been flat-out "no".

We lost everything in the war. The only blood relative we have between us lives on the other side of the country, and we're lucky to hear from her twice a year. Haymitch is always hanging around, but he isn't blood. He's always been more like the cranky Uncle that lives down the street than a father or brother figure for me. Peeta is wonderful, but he's someone that I've _chosen_ to have in my life, not someone that I've always had a connection to, for better or worse.

My father's and Prim's faces flash through my mind, the images dulled by the years, but I remember enough of what they looked like to remember their smiles. If I screw up my mind I can remember Prim as a small child, playing in the small garden in front of our family home. I remember sitting with her and teaching her the letters that I was learning in school, even though she was much too young to understand, and the image fills me with warmth. It's been a long time since I've been able to think of Prim without some kind of pain. The thought hits me hard.

I want a family again.

My eyes are drawn to my hand, held in Peeta's warm grasp. He's simply tracing patterns and lines across my skin, humming to himself. My eyes flicker over to his face. He's watching me.

"What's wrong?" He asks. The words are barely more than a murmur.

I shake my head. "Nothing. Just thinking."

"What about?" The tone is gentle.

I pause. I want this. I _do_. Haven't I just realised that I want this so badly it _hurts_?

I say the words before I can think my way into an unreasonable anxiety about the whole thing. Peeta wants children. I know he does. "I want to have a baby." I murmur.

He stills. It's almost comical. The humming stops and his fingers pause in the middle of some shape he was tracing on my palm. He looks almost like a deer, the way he's watching me. Silent, still. As if the slightest movement will cause him to bolt.

"_What_?"

I feel a grin spread across my face at his incredulity, biting my bottom lip to try to contain it. "I want to have a baby." I say, at a normal pitch this time.

He, on the other hand, doesn't even try to hide his smile. "You mean it?" He asks in a rush, as if opening the floodgates. "You really want to?"

"I really want to." I can't help the small laugh that escapes at the words when he swoops down and kisses me.

Later, when Peeta and I are tangled together in our bed sheets, it occurs to me that I want our baby to have his eyes.

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><p><strong>Bleh, it's been a while since I've written anything in first person. And it's the first time I've written Katniss, so… yeah.<strong>

**Thanks for reading. Could you please review and let me know what you think?**

**Sparkly Faerie**


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